Offside Chat Archives (2014-2021)

Kyle Lopez2 said:🤔

Why have so many coronavirus patients died in Italy?
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-h...ts-died-italy/

According to Prof Walter Ricciardi, scientific adviser to Italy’s minister of health, the country’s mortality rate is far higher because of demographics—the nation has the second oldest population in the world—and the way hospitals record deaths.

“The way in which we code deaths in our country is very generous, in the sense that all the people who die in hospitals with the coronavirus are considered to be dying of the coronavirus.”

“Upon re-evaluation by the National Institutes of Health, only 12 per cent of death certificates showed a direct link to coronavirus, while 88 per cent of the patients who passed away had at least one pre-existing condition— many had two or three,” he noted.

“This doesn't imply that COVID-19 didn't contribute to a patient's death; rather, it shows that Italy's fatality numbers spiked because a huge portion of the patients already had underlying health issues.”

I've already posted this,

What happened in Italy needs to be looked at through additional perspective. A scientific paper by A. and g. Remuzzi published in The Lancet in March 2020 showed that the average age of the first 827 deaths in Italy was 81 years old, and more than two-thirds had diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer, or were former smokers. Essentially, these were the same people who likely would have died from the flu anyway if they hadn't been vaccinated. Furthermore, in a study by Rosano et al. published in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases in 2019, the flu was attributed to 20,259 deaths in Italy during the 2014-15 season, and in the 2016-17 season...There have been a total of 24,981 deaths, even with vaccination efforts underway. This suggests that the final death toll from COVID-19 in Italy could end up being at least roughly comparable to those figures if current infection and mortality rates continue to decline in the coming days.

🤷 It’s kind of funny, but I just wanted to point out that the people passing away were likely going to die from something else anyway due to their critical condition. It's also a bit funny to say that Italy and Wuhan aren't exactly reliable sources when you're trying to calculate infection and mortality rates within the general population.

I'm not sure who "we" are supposed to be. If it makes you feel any better, I'm just representing myself here.

When it comes to estimating flu cases, most people just sleep it off or power through it without a second thought. Statistics only really capture the ones who actually end up seeing a doctor. Plus, it’s tough to draw a direct comparison between the flu and COVID-19, especially since we have a vaccine for the flu, there are no quarantines for it, and so many people already have built-up immunity.

But you can't really justify COVID-19 deaths by saying: "They would've died from the flu anyway if they hadn't gotten vaccinated against it" 🤷. If young people start dying, then you could argue they'd have died from cancer eventually, I guess.

That's like saying people who get run over by some maniac in a car would have died from HIV anyway if they were having unprotected sex with someone who had it.

You realize there isn't a vaccine or a cure for this yet, right? That's exactly why those high-risk groups get their flu shots—so they don't die. But here, they have zero protection, other than praying they don't catch it. It's basically a fifty-fifty shot.

Kyle Lopez2 said:

Don't screw with me. Jovic couldn't hit the broad side of a barn if he tried, let alone a ball.😵

Casemiro has been one of the main guys for years, yet somehow, like 90% of the bench players are pulling in a bigger paycheck than him.🙏🤣
Good grief, what on earth is going on? At this rate, Jovic could easily cover Kasemiro's entire paycheck.🤣 I honestly can't believe it if this turns out to be true.🐔

Damn, man, just a golfer and a foodie at the top of my list.🤣 I haven't seen any terrain in about a year.🤣 Maybe Flo will give Bart some credit.👍

I mean, some of them are definitely weird, but every single news outlet worth its salt is citing that Capsalary site...
Some people are out here claiming Casemiro pulls in around $5 million a year...

I’m predicting that when the next economic crisis hits, it’ll be so severe that Real Madrid will end up offloading Gareth Bale, James, and Luka Modrić—all just to get them off the payroll for pennies on the dollar...

Amanda Evans2 said:Another earthquake
God, everything is just getting worse and worse...

I don't even feel them. Just yesterday afternoon, I heard a faint thud for maybe a second or two. That was it.

🤷.

I honestly only know there was a tremor when I see people talking about it online.

This isn't really an example for you ☕

The last one was just a bit too easy. It's only a shame they were so short. And all within a single day ☕

brightpilot6 said:This isn't really an example for you ☕

The last one was just a bit too easy. It's only a shame they were so short. And all within a single day ☕

That's What She Said?🤷x

Basically 80 million dollars a year wasted on overpriced pork, retired golfers, and some useless, foolish Mexican... 🙏

restlesssurfer97 said:Do you guys at least agree that massive, widespread testing really ought to be one of the top priorities in this whole fight, regardless of how much the bill actually comes to?
And if you aren't on board with that, what's your reasoning?

I don't know, I’m certainly no expert on this subject. But even if I were, who exactly are we talking about mass-testing? At what cost, and what is the actual payoff? Look at what they're doing in Iceland right now—they are practically screening the entire population because they have the resources to do it and a relatively small population to manage, so they're doing it primarily for scientific reasons. Currently, they’ve tested four times more people per million inhabitants than they have in South Korea. The results? Only 1% (specifically 0.89%) of the general population tested was positive—meaning people without any symptoms or specific indications for testing. That’s barely 48 additional people on top of the 409 who were already known cases. So, what does that actually achieve? Okay, sure, you isolate those individuals. But let’s be real: testing takes time, even with the best technology and the strongest will. A small portion of that remaining 99% might actually be false negatives because they are in the very early stages of incubation. Are you just going to let all those people walk around freely? By then, they’ll start developing symptoms and potentially pick up the virus from people who haven't been tested yet and are acting as asymptomatic spreaders. In the end, you're still left with nothing but general population-wide measures.
It’s not just the Icelanders, either! In a similar study conducted in a specific region of Italy—which happens to be one of the hardest-hit countries in the world right now—they actually saw something even higher, around 3%.

A huge number of people only develop mild symptoms that feel just like a common cold. Should we really be testing everyone who shows up with a sniffle? Let’s face it—the classic cold hasn't gone anywhere, and we're right in the middle of allergy season, which produces practically identical symptoms. Sure, if you tested that entire group, you’d probably find a higher percentage of people positive for COVID-19. That’s true. But at what cost? Attempting that level of mass testing in a place like Iceland over such a short window would create a massive logistical nightmare. And then what? What do you actually do with the results? If they test positive, they go into self-isolation—which is basically just following whatever mandates or general measures are already in place. If they test negative, can you even trust the result? Not really, because they could easily pick up the virus somewhere else since horizontal transmission has already kicked in. So, what’s the plan then? Do you want to test them all over again in ten days once they start coughing harder? You’ll have burned through a mountain of cash to test them once, only to end up testing a huge chunk of them again. And where does that leave us? Back to quarantine, which just means returning to more general restrictions anyway. It feels like a loop!

So, should we be testing close contacts or those further out? Honestly, that’s where you see the biggest red flags for testing needs, and there was definitely a breakdown in how the spread was being identified early on. But let me ask you this: what happens if you test everyone? You'll end up with a mountain of negative results. And even among those who test positive, most will be asymptomatic or just dealing with mild symptoms. They’d end up getting the exact same treatment anyway—forced isolation for at least 14 days, or who knows, maybe being sent to a makeshift recovery ward in the Arena! We simply cannot afford to clog up the hospitals with asymptomatic people or folks who just have a common cold; that would lead to an immediate total collapse of the system. The only thing that might actually get better follow-up is the tracking, but even then, I worry we might be paying for it by failing to identify the truly serious cases.

That’s a fair point, really. Everything has its own set of pros and cons, so you can't just give a simple yes or no answer to this. Sure, plenty of people would jump at the chance to get tested if they had just grabbed a bite to eat on a Sunday afternoon, but we simply have to prioritize certain patients. Even if you claim that cost isn't an issue—and let's be honest, it always is, not just for us—we still run into massive hurdles. We're talking about the sheer strain on humanity, the supply chain issues with testing materials, the logistical nightmare of isolating everyone who shows up for a test, and the absolute burnout our healthcare workers are facing right now. In the end, most people would likely walk away with exactly what they’d get anyway: either nothing at all, or the same general restrictions we're seeing everywhere else.

Right now, even with the relatively strict testing regimen we have in place, our positivity rate is sitting at about 10-11%. And keep in mind, some of those numbers include people who have been tested multiple times. What do you guys think? Is that sample size too small? Are we not testing enough? Or is this actually sufficient?

I really hope this chaos in the sports world drags on for a while... maybe if most players refuse those contract cuts, we'll see total mayhem with the sponsors. I honestly don't know how Qatar Airways or Emirates will swallow all this, especially since Lufthansa is basically on life support right now. Sure, QA and US Soccer are essentially oil-funded government projects, but still...

Imagine if they just stop paying out damages entirely, half the players become free agents because clubs terminate their contracts, some teams go belly up, and new names emerge from the ashes. It would be damn interesting to watch, almost like hitting a massive reset button. To start things off, I’m rooting for more contract refusals and seeing a few clubs go bankrupt...

Just more proof of how organized and efficient these measures actually are 🤦

Michelle Palmer6 said:I don't know, I’m certainly no expert on this subject. But even if I were, who exactly are we talking about mass-testing? At what cost, and what is the actual payoff? Look at what they're doing in Iceland right now—they are practically screening the entire population because they have the resources to do it and a relatively small population to manage, so they're doing it primarily for scientific reasons. Currently, they’ve tested four times more people per million inhabitants than they have in South Korea. The results? Only 1% (specifically 0.89%) of the general population tested was positive—meaning people without any symptoms or specific indications for testing. That’s barely 48 additional people on top of the 409 who were already known cases. So, what does that actually achieve? Okay, sure, you isolate those individuals. But let’s be real: testing takes time, even with the best technology and the strongest will. A small portion of that remaining 99% might actually be false negatives because they are in the very early stages of incubation. Are you just going to let all those people walk around freely? By then, they’ll start developing symptoms and potentially pick up the virus from people who haven't been tested yet and are acting as asymptomatic spreaders. In the end, you're still left with nothing but general population-wide measures.
It’s not just the Icelanders, either! In a similar study conducted in a specific region of Italy—which happens to be one of the hardest-hit countries in the world right now—they actually saw something even higher, around 3%.

A huge number of people only develop mild symptoms that feel just like a common cold. Should we really be testing everyone who shows up with a sniffle? Let’s face it—the classic cold hasn't gone anywhere, and we're right in the middle of allergy season, which produces practically identical symptoms. Sure, if you tested that entire group, you’d probably find a higher percentage of people positive for COVID-19. That’s true. But at what cost? Attempting that level of mass testing in a place like Iceland over such a short window would create a massive logistical nightmare. And then what? What do you actually do with the results? If they test positive, they go into self-isolation—which is basically just following whatever mandates or general measures are already in place. If they test negative, can you even trust the result? Not really, because they could easily pick up the virus somewhere else since horizontal transmission has already kicked in. So, what’s the plan then? Do you want to test them all over again in ten days once they start coughing harder? You’ll have burned through a mountain of cash to test them once, only to end up testing a huge chunk of them again. And where does that leave us? Back to quarantine, which just means returning to more general restrictions anyway. It feels like a loop!

So, should we be testing close contacts or those further out? Honestly, that’s where you see the biggest red flags for testing needs, and there was definitely a breakdown in how the spread was being identified early on. But let me ask you this: what happens if you test everyone? You'll end up with a mountain of negative results. And even among those who test positive, most will be asymptomatic or just dealing with mild symptoms. They’d end up getting the exact same treatment anyway—forced isolation for at least 14 days, or who knows, maybe being sent to a makeshift recovery ward in the Arena! We simply cannot afford to clog up the hospitals with asymptomatic people or folks who just have a common cold; that would lead to an immediate total collapse of the system. The only thing that might actually get better follow-up is the tracking, but even then, I worry we might be paying for it by failing to identify the truly serious cases.

That’s a fair point, really. Everything has its own set of pros and cons, so you can't just give a simple yes or no answer to this. Sure, plenty of people would jump at the chance to get tested if they had just grabbed a bite to eat on a Sunday afternoon, but we simply have to prioritize certain patients. Even if you claim that cost isn't an issue—and let's be honest, it always is, not just for us—we still run into massive hurdles. We're talking about the sheer strain on humanity, the supply chain issues with testing materials, the logistical nightmare of isolating everyone who shows up for a test, and the absolute burnout our healthcare workers are facing right now. In the end, most people would likely walk away with exactly what they’d get anyway: either nothing at all, or the same general restrictions we're seeing everywhere else.

Right now, even with the relatively strict testing regimen we have in place, our positivity rate is sitting at about 10-11%. And keep in mind, some of those numbers include people who have been tested multiple times. What do you guys think? Is that sample size too small? Are we not testing enough? Or is this actually sufficient?

It’s absurdly low.

The cost you mentioned earlier shouldn't be an excuse at all, because honestly, we're paying a much, much higher price right now.

I completely missed mentioning Iceland, and man, hats off to them, I think they're doing an incredible job based on what you wrote here.
They’re a unique case—isolated, small population—so it's probably hard to build a universal strategy for every other country based solely on how they handle things, but there will definitely be useful data to come from it. And I'm pretty sure they'll deal with less damage than everyone else.

You really have to look at everything in context, and the context here is just catastrophic; the reality is that hundreds of millions of people are being shoved into quarantine instead of actually being tested.
This is just putting out fires without doing any actual preparation for the next fire that's bound to show up, and if we don't make some quality preparations now, then we're all just going to end up back in quarantine again. It's just a bad strategy.

Medical Association: We aren't testing enough for Corona! This needs to ramp up

I mean, if they end up claiming they don't have enough tests, that’s going to be a massive fail on their part. There’s been more than a month to get production scaled up or just buy them from overseas, which honestly should have been the entire focus for the task force from day one.

Basically, right now they're only testing people whose acute respiratory symptoms can't be explained by anything else, or patients who traveled to—or were in close contact with someone from—a place that had widespread local transmission within the last 14 days.

So the plan is just lock everyone in their houses, ban people from going out, and then only test them if they fit these super specific criteria? It's honestly embarrassing.

It's kind of sad. Now that America finally has local broadcasting, they should probably test everyone who develops some sort of illness, shouldn't they? 🕺

EDIT:

Traffic jams near Split; Opara is calling for the removal of passes within the Split metropolitan area.

🕺

So, my whole plan is basically just to ride this out and live life normally until they finally roll out a vaccine.🙏
Man, what a ride.

William Kim said:So, my whole plan is basically just to ride this out and live life normally until they finally roll out a vaccine.🙏
Man, what a ride.

So, here’s my take on it: you’re looking at a total healthcare system collapse. We're talking about unnecessary deaths piling up while everyone waits around for some magic vaccine to show up. Think about the math for a second. If someone catches a regular old flu, they’ll pass it to about 1.3 people on average. But if someone’s walking around with Corona? They can easily infect 10 people. That’s exactly why quarantine exists. If you just let 100 people with Corona roam free while the rest of us try to live like everything is normal, we're screwed. Within a month—just through a few more rounds of transmission happening "overnight"—you'd have millions of people infected. It's simple math, really.

How on earth could that not have happened in Korea? Without any quarantine, things just exploded and then got slammed back down. And don't even get me started on those other couple of examples where nothing even flared up because everything stayed totally under control.

You guys really need to stop acting like quarantine is some kind of permanent rule carved in stone.

ps. according to the latest health study out of China, the transmissibility of Corona is actually 2.5, not 'about ten people,' and it actually drops down to 1.5 as the temperature rises....

Is "shut everything down" really the best way to go?
Because at this rate, people are going to be taking their own lives every single minute.

Does the majority of patients actually just have mild symptoms? Are we only looking at risks for the elderly and those with chronic illnesses? Is it even possible to implement isolation just for that specific group? There has to be a smarter solution out there somewhere.

William Kim said:Is "shut everything down" really the best way to go?
Because at this rate, people are going to be taking their own lives every single minute.

Does the majority of patients actually just have mild symptoms? Are we only looking at risks for the elderly and those with chronic illnesses? Is it even possible to implement isolation just for that specific group? There has to be a smarter solution out there somewhere.

Exactly—isolate the high-risk groups instead of everyone... otherwise, within a month or two, the entire country will grind to a halt.

Still stuck on this exact same point. Focusing solely on age as the deciding factor is nothing short of pure idiocy...
Say, what if you just ignore the fact that roughly 20% of people under 30 deal with some kind of chronic illness? And let's not even push that boundary out to 50. What happens if the virus mutates slightly? Following your "just let everyone get infected" logic could lead to a massive spike in mortality rates. Nobody actually knows anything about this virus; I linked an interview earlier with a top virologist where the guy practically starts every single answer with, "We don't know enough about the virus yet, we can only speculate."

And you honestly think it’s okay to just let everyone catch it when nobody knows the first thing about the virus? It's all just empty theorizing and nonsense. Look, debate is fine, but calling someone stupid or ignorant just because they disagree with your specific brand of "expertise" is pretty pathetic...

I'll say it again: in most European Union countries where lockdowns and restrictions are in place, people aren't throwing tantrums because they understand it's necessary, and most actually follow the rules. It seems like everyone here just thinks they're the smartest person in the room.

Someone made a good point—now that the soccer season has been postponed, suddenly four million different coaches think they're world-class virologists...

Look, the lack of testing here in America is definitely going to lead to a higher number of infections and a delayed peak in this whole crisis, which just pushes back the recovery too. You don't even have to be a genius to see that's how it works.

The Italians messed up on several levels, and one of their biggest blunders was failing to test people early enough; I heard about a guy there who sat in a hospital bed for five days, infecting about ten doctors and nurses before anyone actually bothered to test him.
We can't really let that kind of thing happen here anymore, but honestly, we still aren't grasping just how vital massive testing numbers are.

Test, test, and test more.

The Canadians had a bit of a slow reaction at first—though people were making jokes everywhere, much like they were here—but then they really pulled themselves together, and you can see the results now. We had an excellent initial response, but since then, we've just been lagging behind. If we end up surpassing them in terms of total infected cases, which is totally possible, will that finally prove anything to anyone?